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Are Labor and Trade Unions Still Necessary in Our Economy?

Are Labor and Trade Unions Still Necessary in Our Economy?

  • Yes

    Votes: 49 55.1%

  • No

    Votes: 31 34.8%

  • Other

    Votes: 9 10.1%
  • Total voters
    89
polgara said:
Human nature? Both win - the boss gets ego strokes...employee gets preferential treatment. It might not be fair, but it is what it is, I guess. Thankfully, I retired early and I'm out of the rat race! It probably won't change, either, with the competition for jobs these days! Everyone is stressed! :thumbdown:

Greetings, Amandi. :2wave:
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Hello Polgara!!! :2wave:

How's Garion and Belgarath?
 
Amandi said:
Unfortunately, bosses do have a bad habit of not documenting bad workers to prove that they are bad workers. If they would do that simple thing, they would be able to punish the bad workers.

Again, set up a reward system for extraordinary work to reward the people who do extra work and let all the others get treated at a base fair level.
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No, unions have a bad habit of threatening bosses who try to remove the bad apples. This fact is as old as stone. No need to suggest otherwise.

Your suggestion makes me think you don't have much experience in union represented job environments.
 
iacardsfan said:
Government meddles in business and acts as a placebo to make the American people feel better about it, while actually protecting us from nothing. In a society where the people drive the market, that is where the people are really protected.
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Utter nonsense and totally ignores we have federal, state and local governments - not one monolithic government.
 
Amandi said:
I dont want a nanny state. I dont want laws regulating these things. These are the job of the union. Just because something is spelled out in a manual doesnt mean they have any force without laws behind them. The non-union jobs I have had didnt distribute the choice of when to take vacation evenly at all. The boses favorite people got to take their vacation whenever they wanted to and could walk in and get the next day off and the people who werent had to ask for vacation two weeks in advance.
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i can only use my own experiences here...so i know they are anecdotal

i have managed a lot of people over 30+ years

every boss has favorites...i do

people we can count on no matter what

people who dont look at the clock when something has be finished

i have four i can think of immediately

and yes...if they came to me today and said they needed the next few days off, i would 99% say okay

BUT they also know that i still hold them responsible for their jobs

these four would make sure nothing falls through the cracks

can i treat everyone the exact same way.....no

sorry....but that is a privilege that is earned not given

unions had a place in our history....and did magnificent things for the general worker

now they are political machines...care little for the worker

and have put companies out of business (see hostess for one)
 
Smeagol said:
[...] I think it was eastern airlines that died as a company because of a union. [...]
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Eastern died as a result of deregulation and a corporate raider (Frank Lorenzo) who locked out the union and sold off part of the company to a second company that he also owned. All the major carriers eventually went bankrupt as a result of deregulation, the courts letting some of them raid union trust funds in the process. Airline deregulation also bankrupted surface transportation companies as the lost market share to cheap airline tickets (Greyhound comes to mind).

Smeagol said:
A better solution than unions is to include company stock in workers' compensation.
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Maybe, maybe not. A better solution is for the workers to own the company outright, for companies can be bought, pumped, and dumped (seems like that was Mitt Romney's specialty). Of course the government will allow overseas companies to compete unfairly, so unless you're speaking of a business that is immune to foreign competition you'll still be screwed by the people that make the rules (and those people are not the politicians, but the ones who own them).
 
Amandi said:
Hello Polgara!!! :2wave:

How's Garion and Belgarath?
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Still making sure the bad guys are punished - still having fun thinking up new ways to accomplish it - and still - with Polgara's help, trying to make sure Ce'Nedra doesn't cause too much mischief! :mrgreen:! I often wonder how Emperor Kal Zakath and blindfolded Seeress Cyradis [who was chosen to decide the fate of the world] would have been portrayed in future Eddings' books. What a loss his death was to those of us who very much enjoyed his fantasy epic series of books. :sigh:
 
clownboy said:
Utter nonsense and totally ignores we have federal, state and local governments - not one monolithic government.
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Just because there a governments in place, does not mean they have the right or the power to use power to dictate the market. Look at the history of when the government controls the market, it never works out.
 
Why do we need unions when Obama is allowing illegals to come to America? These people will work for minimum wage and be very happy to have a job. Isn't that why they are coming here? But of course people will say that "capitalist" will take advantage of these poor illegals. Either way unions are a thing of the past. They WERE good when they were needed but we now have all those laws in place to protect employees. The great Obama has even passed laws for equal pay for women which his WH even refuses to follow. Their is NO true protection for anyone who works. I am working with union craft people now and 75% of them don't like or trust their unions. I could never understand why anyone would want to or have to pay someone to keep a job.
 
TheDemSocialist said:
Many people often claim that labor and trade unions are no longer needed, because "safety regulations, fair wages, days off, 8 hour work day, and child labor" have already been won. They claim because of this labor, and trade unions are no longer needed. My question is: Are Labor and Trade Unions Still Necessary in Our Economy?
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To the extent that unions are necessary, they will demonstrate so by making their companies more competitive.
 
Amandi said:
The managerial job thing is a strawman to my point because I didnt mention it and know the union has no control over it. Yes, seniority is a good way to determine things.
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It's not a straw man to provide an example of something that cannot be evenly distributed. And seniority is not necessarily a good way to determine anything.

I will have to admit, in a lot of open shops the union will only fight for their members, but why shouldnt they. Their members are who joined the union and paid the dues of the union.
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It makes sense that they would do this... now if only they'd come out and plainly admit it. They sell a service, which is to try to extract more out of other people's employers. In that sense they too are business people with their own self-focused business goals.

The following link makes a comprehensive argument explaining how unions operate as cartels, with their intent being to control and restrict supply in order to drive up the price of the thing they sell. That is exactly what they do. How Unions Work | The Employee Free Choice Act and the Economy
 
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I think of it this way - there's 3 sides to the labor question:
  1. Employers
  2. Unions
  3. Laborers (as in, the people working)

My understanding of the history here is that originally (and for thousands of years, for the most part), the employers were on top of the heap, and could basically dictate things as they wished. Even to the extent of effective or actual enslavement...even killing their workers if they so desired.

At some point in the last few hundred years, however, there were multiple movements all over the world that led to far more power and such in the hands of workers and unions, in many cases specifically the formation of unions caused this.
At some point, I think the power unions have was effectively in the same corner as the power of the mass of working people.

But now it seems to be separate, at least in some cases.

Currently I get an impression of power being removed from the hands of the working persons, some going into unions and some going into the hands of the employers.

This is not a good thing.
 
gdgyva said:
i can only use my own experiences here...so i know they are anecdotal

i have managed a lot of people over 30+ years

every boss has favorites...i do

people we can count on no matter what

people who dont look at the clock when something has be finished

i have four i can think of immediately

and yes...if they came to me today and said they needed the next few days off, i would 99% say okay

BUT they also know that i still hold them responsible for their jobs

these four would make sure nothing falls through the cracks

can i treat everyone the exact same way.....no

sorry....but that is a privilege that is earned not given

unions had a place in our history....and did magnificent things for the general worker

now they are political machines...care little for the worker

and have put companies out of business (see hostess for one)
Click to expand...

I wouldnt argue that unions need an overhaul and if there was an alternative I would look into it but I dont agree with "throwing the baby out with the bathwater". Workers need to be protected from being exploited.
 
Neomalthusian said:
It's not a straw man to provide an example of something that cannot be evenly distributed. And seniority is not necessarily a good way to determine anything.
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It is when the discussion is about what unions affect, since they dont affect who becomes a supervisor. A more appropriate comparison would be a new position comes available that falls into the group they can represent., the union wouldnt just want the most senior person to get the position, they would want the most qualified person. If two people have the same qualifications then seniority would factor in.

Neomalthusian said:
It makes sense that they would do this... now if only they'd come out and plainly admit it. They sell a service, which is to try to extract more out of other people's employers. In that sense they too are business people with their own self-focused business goals.

The following link makes a comprehensive argument explaining how unions operate as cartels, with their intent being to control and restrict supply in order to drive up the price of the thing they sell. That is exactly what they do. How Unions Work | The Employee Free Choice Act and the Economy
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I wouldnt argue that unions may need a major overhaul but there is still a use for them. If another way to ensure workers arent exploited comes along, I would definately look into them.
 
ocean515 said:
No, unions have a bad habit of threatening bosses who try to remove the bad apples. This fact is as old as stone. No need to suggest otherwise.

Your suggestion makes me think you don't have much experience in union represented job environments.
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I have been a member of my local union for 3 years and a shop steward for 2. Obviously I havent been a member of all unions everywhere but I have never heard of a supervisor being threatened for disaplining a subordinate.
 
TheDemSocialist said:
All I stated is that some money goes to the GOP especially on the state level....
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Why should union money go to any political candidate? The job of the union is to improve negotiating power against more powerful companies, not setting legislation.

Union - political alliances create monopolistic situations like forced participation by workers like happens in closed shop states, and confiscation of privately owned stock
which can then be given to the unions.

I've got no problem with a groups getting together to enhance bargaining power, be it 2 or 2 million. I've got a problem with forcing me to participate.
 
Amandi said:
I have been a member of my local union for 3 years and a shop steward for 2. Obviously I havent been a member of all unions everywhere but I have never heard of a supervisor being threatened for disaplining a subordinate.
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Then my claim holds true. Ever wonder why some companies have separate secure parking lots for management? Familiar with job slow downs, production line sabotage? There are many things union members can and have done to deal with bosses they don't like.

Also, consider some of the actions bosses have taken to remove people, only to have them ordered returned to their jobs after arbitration, or other such review.
 
ocean515 said:
Then my claim holds true. Ever wonder why some companies have separate secure parking lots for management? Familiar with job slow downs, production line sabotage? There are many things union members can and have done to deal with bosses they don't like.

Also, consider some of the actions bosses have taken to remove people, only to have them ordered returned to their jobs after arbitration, or other such review.
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I guess I just havent worked in the right job sectors because no where I have worked supervisors had a fenced in parking lot. As far as bosses removeing people and they being reinstated, find the problem with the system and fix it instead of getting rid of unions. Again, I dont disagree that some things done by unions rise to the level of ridiculous but I have seen and experienced supervisors that play with the employees lives just because they can.
 
Amandi said:
I guess I just havent worked in the right job sectors because no where I have worked supervisors had a fenced in parking lot. As far as bosses removeing people and they being reinstated, find the problem with the system and fix it instead of getting rid of unions. Again, I dont disagree that some things done by unions rise to the level of ridiculous but I have seen and experienced supervisors that play with the employees lives just because they can.
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I have written before that I don't inherently have a problem with private sector unions. Frankly, I'd rather see a company provide appropriate pay and benefits that would make union representation unnecessary. The dues would be better used in the workers hands.

As to bad bosses, it certainly doesn't require a union shop to find supervisors who get a charge out of messing with people. They can be as bad for a company as poor finished goods
 
ocean515 said:
I have written before that I don't inherently have a problem with private sector unions. Frankly, I'd rather see a company provide appropriate pay and benefits that would make union representation unnecessary. The dues would be better used in the workers hands.

As to bad bosses, it certainly doesn't require a union shop to find supervisors who get a charge out of messing with people. They can be as bad for a company as poor finished goods
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To me, public sector is even more important to have a union since you dont even have a profit margin to keep managers in check.

I would love to see more companies that have employees that dont need or want to join the union and I am against closed shop 100% as long as the union doesnt have to represent the person who doesnt join.
 
I think unions were wrong headed to begin with. The problem was the relationship between labor and capital, so something like a union that pits the interests of one party against the other could only logically make the problem worse, not better.
 
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Amandi said:
To me, public sector is even more important to have a union since you dont even have a profit margin to keep managers in check.

I would love to see more companies that have employees that dont need or want to join the union and I am against closed shop 100% as long as the union doesnt have to represent the person who doesnt join.
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We certainly part ways on the public sector part. Public Sector Unions have led to some of the most damaging economics state and local governments have had to deal with.

Because there are few economic ramifications for their actions, taxpayers in general are left holding the bag when politicians financially benefitting from public union support pay back the effort.

The State of California has been massively damaged by the efforts of unions like the SEIU who have purchased control of the Legislature with money provided by taxpayers through union dues.

At least in the private sector, a unions excessive actions can cut their own throat. In the public sector, as long as their are taxpayers to foot the bill, it doesn't matter how outrageous the union request.
 
jimbo said:
Why should union money go to any political candidate? The job of the union is to improve negotiating power against more powerful companies, not setting legislation.
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Negotiation power, and collective bargaining is directly political and often plays on the state and national level politics.
 
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